MadameNoire
Source: Bravo / Getty
After apparently receiving some criticism on an anti-spanking repost she shared on her Instagram Stories last night, The Real Housewives of Potomac’s Ashley Darby fired back in a lengthy message that encourages people to “look into the extensive research.”
Although as of now the post that kicked off the conversation is still up, if you didn’t get the chance to see it, Ashley reposted a graphic from a fellow Instagram user named @jencoreybaca. It read, “The unintended consequences of spanking: Increased risk of being victimized by abusive relationships in adulthood, more likely to hit, bully or use aggression to solve problems, low self-esteem, decreased IQ and cognitive development, negative parent-child relationships, and more depressive symptoms as an adult.”
Earlier today, in a series of videos also shared via her Stories, the mom of two firmly doubled down on her anti-spanking stance after sharing that she’d received some negative commentary after reposting the graphic from the previous night. According to her, spanking is essentially a generational curse that can be stopped if parents who are still practicing the disciplinary measure are willing to educate themselves on how harmful it can be to their child’s holistic health and future.
Read everything Ashley had to say down below, and if you’re interested, watch some of the clips from her Stories too. Relatedly, we recently published a timely piece on eight reasons not to spank your child. To hear from other Black women on why and why not they choose to spank, click here.
There have been a lot of responses about the sign that I posted regarding how antiquated, outdated, and unnecessary spanking is to children. There have been a lot of insults to me about how I’m a new parent — ‘What do I know?’ ‘I’m trying to tell everybody what to do,’ XYZ. But for the most part, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response where people are agreeing. And it makes me so happy to know that we are evolving, that we are learning, and we are doing better.
For those of you who are continuing to stand by believing and perpetuating the idea that showing physical pain is also showing love — which is just so counterintuitive and backward if you actually think about it — I encourage you to do some research. Look into the extensive research that has been done about children’s development and the negative ramifications [of spanking] later in life.
Now I don’t know why it’s okay to pluck, hit, and whip children but yet that’s not okay to do to adults. Are you really saying that the only way that you can help a child learn to do the ‘right thing’ and be moral is by inflicting pain on them? No, that’s wrong. And you are minimizing and you’re completely missing just how intelligent children are and how the brain actually works, okay?
Also, I wish that you could do some research about people who are rapists and abusers. If you look at serial killers and you look at their childhoods, do you know what’s a common link? They were all abused as children. They all were ‘spanked.’ They all endured physical punishment as children. That does not yield healthy happy humans, so to any of you who say that it’s the only way that you can prevent your child or your children from being hoodlums, hooligans, disrespectful, etc… you need to know that you’re wrong.
You’re only practicing something that was done to you, that’s passed down. But now, we know better. There is much more information available that shows and disproves what you were saying. So you’re only tricking yourself, you’re only duping yourself, only hurting your children — and you’re not actually helping them or society, let me tell you.
